The Great Debt.
“The King began to be much concerned in regard to the great debt. He
called his bankers together and had them compute it down to date. Then
after brooding over the matter for some days he called his council and
the Lunarian claimants together and made them a speech. He declared he
was sick and tired of “paying interest.” True, he had never paid any, but
it constantly added to the already most appalling debt to be found in the
solar system. “In fact it is so great (said he) that we have no single
words to express it. It is written by setting down 20 and then annexing
to that a string of 153 ciphers. The original debt left by my illustrious
ancestor the father of the canals was 1,000,000 kiks, at least that is
all his successor assumed, and it is that insignificant sum that has
grown to such overwhelming proportions.
“Take 20,000,000 septillions of kiks and multiply by 1,000,000
sextillions; multiply this product by 1,000,000 of quintillions and
this by 1,000,000 quadrillions; this by 1,000,000 millions; and
finally multiply this by 1,000,000. Now from this inconceivably great
sum subtract _one kik_. That kik is the principal; all the rest is
_interest_. As the whole principal was 1,000,000 kiks, our whole debt
is 1,000,000 times the above sum.[5] I have for several days been
endeavoring to master the financial principle applicable to this case.
Our Lunarian professors have told us that the normal advance of natural
modes of motion is by undulation, or the progressive rising and falling
of one wave after another, as in the ocean, the movement of heat and
light, the ebbing and flowing of the tides etc. I have observed that the
same law holds in the accumulation of wealth. It undulates. It is lively
awhile, then dull. Business men accumulate a pile, then lose it. It is
the same with money engaged in business, it sometimes gains, sometimes
loses. A man may drink twenty hogsheads of wine, but he cannot accumulate
that much inside of him at once.
“It may be possible for one little kik in the course of 7,000 years to
earn on Mars all the wealth both real and personal that there is on all
the planets in the solar system and much more besides. At any rate it has
done it on paper according to the figures and the claim of our Lunarian
friends, but evidently it could only be done by its dropping a lot of
it occasionally and earning it over again. So the undulatory movement
applies here as a physical necessity. But the papers in this case so
far, represent only the swelling of the wave without the complementary
sinking that completes an undulation, and makes its continued movement
a physical possibility. These papers relate only to the ascending or
crescendo half of the wave, but fail to provide for the diminuendo side
of it. This wave has been swelling for 7,000 years. It is high time it
had reached its culmination or greatest amplitude and I think it has.
Seven is a mystic number and in this case evidently marks that epoch.
Time alone was competent to enable a little kik to pile up such an
accumulation of debt against us, and what time has done, time can undo.
“I propose now to issue a diminuendo bond that will in the course of
7,000 years reduce this debt back to the level it started from. Instead
of bearing interest, this bond will bear discount. This discount the
first year will be precisely what the interest was the last, and each
year in the descending future the bond will be reduced to the same amount
to which it was increased in the year as far in the past as it is in the
future counting from the date of the bond. So that 1,000 years hence
the amount of it will be the same that it was 1,000 years ago and so
on. Coupons shall be attached, representing the amount of the discount
each year which the holders of the bonds shall detach and present to the
treasurer to be cancelled. Thus the debt will be reduced every year and
it will cost nobody a kik.
“At the end of 7,000 years all the accumulation of interest will have
been dissipated and only the principal will be left. This if not paid
then will begin to draw interest again, because by the undulatory theory,
the wave having reached its lowest ebb must thereafter rise.”
“This was the substance of the king’s speech, and it was highly applauded
by the whole assembly, except the Lunarians. They said it looked to them
like repudiation, and they told the king they feared it would hurt his
credit not only in the Moon, but on the Earth, and Venus, Juno, Pallas,
Ceres, Vesta and all the rest. The King replied that he would be sorry
to do anything that would impair his credit in the other planets and for
that reason would not on any account repudiate. That was why he gave this
bond. If he intended to repudiate he would not need to give any bond.
By this arrangement they would get their million kiks in the course of
time—would no doubt have got them long ago—if that load of interest had
not been piled on top of them. The object of this bond was to remove this
interest. According to the undulatory theory of finance that he had just
announced, the total amount of loss of money employed in business exactly
equals the total amount of gain, since money does not change in amount by
being used. But in particular cases there may be net gains at the expense
of loss somewhere else. And he said that the shrewdness of the Lunarians
would have insured to them a measure of net gain; but by no possibility
could it have amounted to many times itself even in the course of ages.
“It is labor, not money, that creates wealth. If you bury 100 kiks in
the ground and after a year dig them up you will not find that they have
increased to 105.”
“This talk of the king convinced the Lunarians that he did not intend to
pay the interest on their claim and as they could not afford to quarrel
with him, they proposed a compromise, and it was finally settled that
they should receive 1,000,000 kiks in addition to the property they had
taken on the foreclosure, and a bond for ten million kiks to be paid at
the option of the government without interest or security. They did not
regard this bond as very valuable, and as a matter of fact it has not
been paid off to this day, but still constitutes a “claim.” After all,
however, they did well enough notwithstanding their astounding loss.
“They were now recognized as men who through no fault of their own had
sunk the most stupendous sum of money ever known to exist in one fund,
and this circumstance gave them as much notoriety and almost as much
influence and importance, as if they still had to their credit the sum
of 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000
kiks.”
Deimos and the Great Cable.
These financial questions being settled the Lunarians went to work to
improve their new property. They commenced work on the south polar
region, opening extensive mines of coal and iron and starting furnaces
and rolling mills. It soon became known what they were up to, which
proved to be nothing less than the capture of Jack-Deimos and setting
him to work. The first thing to do was to construct a cable long enough
to reach from the pole of Mars to Deimos. Deimos is 14,547 miles from
the center of Mars and a little further from the pole viz 14,690 miles.
The cable was made about 25 miles longer than that. It was composed of a
vast number of strands of tremendously tough steel wire and put together
in the most marvelous way, for they were in small bundles insulated
from each other as to the attraction of gravitation and also insulated
by sections of their length. By this construction a part of the strands
might be made to be subject to the attraction of gravitation, others
alongside of them to repulsion, also a strand might be made subject to
attraction in one part while in another it could be subject to repulsion,
and these conditions could be reversed, or all the parts could be caused
to be in the same state. The effect of this was very remarkable. When the
cable was completed it was stretched out a section of one to two hundred
miles at a time, and tested, an alternating electrical battery being used
to alter the gravitational conditions. By proper manipulation, the cable
could be made to rise bodily from the ground, or it could be made to rise
by sections, one section on the ground and another humped up like the
back of an angry cat, or when lying down straight it could be made to
roll over, by causing one side to be attractive and the other repelling.
“This cable was eight inches in diameter. The lower end was doubled
on itself to form an eye five feet in diameter. The other end for 25
miles was left free, the wires all being separate and loose with balls
of iron attached to their ends. When this end of the cable was tested,
a considerable section, by being subjected to repulsion, rose from
the ground and assumed a perpendicular position, the loose ends of
the wire parting and repelling each other like the hairs on the head
of an electrified person. This was what was required and the test was
pronounced a perfect success.
“Over the south pole of Mars is a mountain some 8,000 feet above the sea
level. They found the exact pole not far from the highest part of this
mountain which was a lucky circumstance. Here they planted a great steel
shaft deep in the hard rock, its end sticking up so as to receive the eye
of the cable. A good deal of grading and leveling off of obstructions
that stood up above the proposed sweep of the cable, had to be removed.
But the largest part of the work was the construction of the circular
railway. This railway was built in a circle around the pole and 285 miles
distant from it. The diameter of this circle was 570 and the length of
the road was 1,791 miles. There were two purposes to be served by this
road. A person standing at the pole of Mars cannot see Deimos on account
of the bulge or convex surface of the globe. And it is only when he gets
285 miles from the pole that he can look over the bulge and see the
little moon. So a rope drawn taut from Deimos to the pole of the planet,
would drag on the ground for the 285 miles next the pole, but outside of
the 285 miles the line would gradually leave the ground. A large heavy
car was made to travel on the railroad to hold up the cable as it swept
around. Attached to this car there was to be a train holding the dynamos
in which the power was to be turned into electricity.
“When everything was ready to hook on to the little moon, the cable was
caused to erect itself by repulsion. It tended to stand directly out in
line with the pole as if it were a continuation of the axis, and care had
to be taken to prevent it slipping off its shaft and going off bodily
into space. This had been anticipated and provided against however.
After standing a few hours under the influence of repulsion it became
rigid and perfectly straight. One-half of the strands throughout the
whole length of the cable except the last twenty miles were now placed
under the influence of attraction and the other half under repulsion.
This left it still rigid, but indifferent and movable in any direction
by a very small force like a water soaked log in the water. Attraction
was now turned on a very small portion of the lower end of the cable and
it began slowly to incline toward the ground. When it got down almost
to the ground it was found that the ground where the railroad was built
was running under the cable from west to east at the rate of 72½ miles
an hour. Some very delicate manipulation was required here. The cable by
having been erected at the pole had no rotary motion as the planet had.
The planet revolved from west to east at the rate of 521.4 miles an hour
at the equator, but, at the circular railroad this was reduced to 72.6
miles. At the pole of course it was nothing. As the railroad track and
the car for carrying the cable were whirling along at that rate while
the cable itself was stationary, it became necessary to give the cable a
rotary sweep corresponding in direction with the diurnal revolution of
the planet, and at somewhere near the same speed. This was accomplished
by compelling work to be done by the revolution of the planet. Several
little circular tracks were laid around the pole and close to it on which
were placed cars carrying heavy steel beams that projected on either side
and dragged cutting and scraping tools. The cars being attached to the
cable, as the planet revolved they were made to pare down the mountain,
and as this process continued long after the successful attachment of
the cable to Deimos the part of the mountain immediately at the pole
became shaped like an immense pin or capstan. The doing of this work by
this steady pulling on the cable gradually set the cable to revolving
around the shaft at the pole, the speed constantly increasing until at
the railway the cable had developed a speed of 60 miles an hour or within
12.6 miles an hour of the rate the surface of the planet at the railway
was traveling. A locomotive was now attached to the car or truck that
was to carry the cable, and by running it from east to west at the rate
of 12.6 miles an hour it could be kept directly under the cable. Before
lowering it, however, it was necessary to hump or raise up that part of
it extending from the pole to the railway, to keep it from dragging on
the ground which if straight it would do on account of the rounding of
the globe of Mars. That was done by turning on repulsion over that part
of it, and simultaneously putting on attraction in the region of the
railway. This tended to cant the loose end of the cable toward the plane
of the planet’s equator and brought it very near to the orbit of Deimos.
The cable was settled upon its truck without trouble. This truck with the
cable now had an apparent motion from east to west of 12.6 miles an hour
its real motion being from west to east 60 miles an hour and that of the
railway track also from west to east 72.6 miles an hour. The loose end
of the cable swept around with a speed proportional with its distance
from the pole of Mars. This speed was 3,062½ miles per hour which is 46
miles faster than that of Deimos which is 3,016½ as I mentioned before.
Of course it was now only necessary to tip the cable over a little more
so as to get it into the equatorial plane of Mars in order to bring it
into contact with Deimos. This was done by applying attraction to a
short section of the cable just outside of the railway track. The cable
slowly moved at the switch end and came into line with Deimos about 43
days after having passed him. So as it gained on him only 46 miles an
hour, it took about 40 days after this to catch up. This gave ample time
to get the cable into exact position so there would be no danger of
missing him. This most exciting race was now closely watched by every
body on Mars that could get near a telescope—and our folks had introduced
some very excellent ones. The cable gradually crept up on Jack—so the
spectators said—like an old woman with a broom. As the final moment
approached the excitement became intense. The cable like a vast arm
terminated by an immense hand with extended fingers came up threateningly
behind and at the fated instant gave Jack a spank on the rear with a
shock of 46 miles an hour which sent all the fingers flying around him
and clasping him with a tremendous grasp.
“At that moment full attraction was turned on to these clasping
strands of wire and their hug was made permanent by the attraction
with which Deimos held them down to his surface. This was considered
by the Lunarians the greatest feat in engineering that had ever been
accomplished up to that time.”
“Or since that time either I should imagine,” said I, “it was wonderful!
What else has ever been achieved to compare with it?”
“Well, the catching of Lucy-Phobos”—
“O, I forgot about Lucy-Phobos. What did they do with her or him?—Did
they hitch Phobos to the other pole of Mars?”
“No, I’ll tell you; but let me finish with Deimos first. When the cable
struck Deimos of course its speed was at once checked. The shock caused
quite a wave to pass down the whole length of the cable, but no damage
was done, and when things got steadied down again it was found the
truck that carried the cable was making a speed of 13½ miles an hour
from east to west instead of 12.6 which it was doing before the cable
struck Deimos. The reason of this was that Deimos was slower than the
cable and Mars dragged the track out from under the car 13½ miles faster
than Deimos dragged it forward. It was no trouble after this to go up to
Deimos by way of the cable. A car was built around the cable consisting
of four stories, one above another. Friction rollers pressed the cable
on all sides to steady the car and there were brakes to hold it when
necessary. Its chambers were air tight and it carried compressed air for
the use of its passengers together with all the modern conveniences. Of
course it ascended by repulsion and came back by attraction. It entirely
obviated the trouble they first experienced in making a landing on the
little moon, since the cable traveled as fast as it did. Frequent trips
were made to Deimos and it was always quite the trip for the strong
nerved traveler to take. But the main advantage of this work of course
came from the enormous power that it afforded for industrial purposes.
A long train of trucks were attached to the one carrying the cable, and
these contained dynamos driven by gearing connections with their axles.
The electricity generated in this way was carried to wires running
parallel with the circular railroad, and from these, radiating wires
running north, convey the power to all parts of the south temperate zone.”
“They made considerable and remarkable changes in Deimos itself. One
thing they did was to import a large stock of air. As I mentioned before
the air was very light and thin, and visitors at first had to depend
on their flasks of compressed air to a great extent. But after they
got to making such frequent trips, it became a rule to always take up
large flasks of compressed oxygen which was prepared and kept on hand
to be carried up whenever a trip should be made. This was set free on
the little moon. In that way in the course of time the air has been
made quite passable. In order that visitors might not consume it and
replace it with carbonic acid gas, they built several lines of tiny
railroads reaching around Deimos on which they built movable gardens.
These moved around the whole circuit of the little globe every 30 hours
and 18 minutes, that being its period of revolution around Mars. These
little gardens thus kept themselves directly under the sun all the time,
and were thus always in a tropical climate. Their growth consumed the
carbonic gas that accumulated there, and so kept the air pure. The power
that moved the gardens was electricity generated by sun light. A large
number of machines were placed at intervals all around the little moon so
that the sun should always be shining on several of them.”